Minions
by midnightluck
Summary: Batman thought he had broken Robin of bringing home strays, but then a minion follows Robin home. Can he keep it?


_All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners (DC/Bob Kane, Universal/Illumination)._

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><p>Batman thought he had broken his adoptive son of bringing back strays. First Kid Flash, and then that puppy, and then Superboy, of all things. Granted, he hadn't set the best example by bringing Richard home in the first place, but really. This was getting absurd.<p>

Robin held the little yellow...thing...on his lap, where it chirruped and made noises, waving its hands in the air in a thrilled manner. Batman shouldn't have even let it in the Batmobile, but it was too late now.

"What...is it?" he asked in distaste.

"S'a minion," Robin answered, hiding a yawn behind his hand. "Found it wandering around in the FailPail district."

The FailPail district was, of course, not the actual name of the place, though no one really remembered that now. It was a strange street, full of old houses next to shiny, high-tech buildings next to underground bunkers. The "Fail" part of the name came from the fact that it was inhabited by villains, mostly of the costumed variety, all of the incompetent variety. The "Pail" part came from the iconic three-story building that looked like it came from an old-fashioned sand castle bucket.

In all honesty, it would be a good place to keep a headquarters, if one were trying to be Villain of the Year, because no one would expect it, coming from what was basically the supervillain slums.

In short, exactly the kind of place one would find an oddly-shaped creature named "minion."

"It probably has an owner," Batman said dourly, decelerating into the Batcave.

"It followed me home," Robin answered, drooping. The minion in his lap chuckled cheerfully.

"Right."

He carefully removed the creature from Robin's lap, even as the Boy Wonder dragged himself out of the car and up the stairs. It looked like quite an effort, seeing as the boy was doing his best to pretend he didn't have a proper spine.

Batman dropped the minion in his cleansing chemical bath, scrubbed it down, and then sent it through the x-ray.

It came out with a new toy.

He stared at the creature, who giggled and pushed a button, making the disc in its hand beep a simple melody. On the other hand, his x-ray had now turned blue.

"Put that back!" Batman said sternly. "Right this instant."

The minion drooped and sighed, but he did re-enter the x-ray machine, and soon it was back up to standards.

Still, for the minion to tear his x-ray apart and build something that worked was pretty impressive.

"What's your name?" Batman asked, giving the minion his best stony glare.

The creature cowered and babbled.

"Carl?" Batman repeated in disbelief. "What kind of a name is Carl for a minion?"

Carl bleeberboobled, drawing out the vowel sounds, until "Batman" sounded more like "Blattermabble".

"Yes," Batman muttered. "Good point."

He sent the thing through the scanner again, then dropped it in a cage, locking it securely. He quickly became engrossed in his findings. It was so weird, almost like the yellow creature was all brain and muscle. It didn't look particularly smart, but then, it was yellow.

Bruce pulled back his cowl, went over to the BatComputer, and started doing research.

He didn't know how much time had passed before he felt something nudge his boot. Pushing away from the computer and looking down, he saw the minion bashfully holding up a small black box. He took it carefully, holding it between two fingers. It had two little joysticks, and a small red button.

Bruce looked between the minion and the box. The yellow creature made a _vroom_ing noise, and mimed moving joysticks with its hands.

Tapping one of the joysticks ever so lightly brought a faint noise to his ears. The minion laughed and clapped, and then scrabbled up his cloak onto his lap so it could manipulate the joystick.

A small black car with little bat wings shot out of the shadows, and rocketed around, spinning in a spiral to a stop.

"Impressive," Bruce said, examining the car. "What does the button do?"

Cackling, Carl pushed the red button. The roof of the car unfolded, and a ray gun twice the size of the car itself popped out.

"And you built this from discarded parts?" Bruce demanded.

Carl blooped and hopped down, dancing and bouncing to the car. Sensing his presence, the car fired the ray gun, which instantly froze the little minion.

"Hot _damn_," Batman said. "How many of you are there, and what do you charge?"


End file.
